(Hence why I have not posted for a few days)
But finally on the fourth day of public holidays, and what I thought was the last of Carnaval, I decided that it might be best to avoid the 250,000-person-plus crush of the beaches and head to cleaner pastures.
Dragging along my newfound friend from Sydney – yes, you have to travel halfway across the world to meet your neighbours – I set off to find Niteroi’s famed Museum of Contemporary Art. Trying to avoid the deep end, I had already contrived a bus and ferry route to follow that would land us there in enough time to have lunch and move further north to the more localised, less crowded, beaches.
However it soon became clear that finding the actual stop for said bus was going to the first of our many challenges. I quickly remembered something I had read about the kindness of Brazilians in always providing answers or directions for tourists. The only problem was that this information rarely correlated to reality, despite all their good intentions. Three ‘advices’ later, and a trip around the block back past the hostel confirmed that it was on the next street. Easy. Well, until you have to make the bus stop. Hurtling along Rua Barata Ribeiro at about 100km/hr, the 415 to Placa XV was certainly not accepting passengers who didn’t put up a good fight. So putting myself clearly in its path, and halfway across the main road, I took it on, and thankfully won.
Finally inside and we were instantly ushered through a turnstyle (don’t ask me how they got that inside the bus) and thrown into our seats as we climbed once again to a bullet-like pace. It was like a scene from the movie “Speed” as we were slammed forward into unrelenting bars, slid into each others hips, and jolted suddenly back up again. God only knows how we managed to meet the ferry in one piece, but we did, and had the calmest cruise across the harbour to Niteroi. We sat peacefully snapping away at the impressive 15.5km bridge and arrived only minutes later to face another bus to the museum.
Unfortunately though, it seems Rio is perennially geared to force you to go to the beach, and being a public holiday, Oscar Niemeyer’s ‘spaceship’ was closed. We were still lucky enough to gaze at its strange exterior (and I can quote Lonely Planet and say that the exhibitions “aren’t always notable”) and sneak a look downstairs at the rather pricey restaurant, making good use of their toilets, and their unique dental floss and mouthwash service.
Finally it was off to the beach at Itaipu where we finally got to snack on some fried bacalao (salted cod) and chips and watch the locals watch us. Yes, about an hour away from Copacabana, we were definitely off the tourist trail.
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